Edward Ware Thrillers Newsletter January, 2019:
Cheops Books LLC has just published Dora Benley’s latest young adult thriller, Mysterious Neighbor.
Picture of cover of Mysterious Neighbor
Teenager Madeline Anthony-Pratt climbs over the wall to her neighbor’s house one night to retrieve her cat. Intruders appear. She hides in the shadows. They whisper in a foreign tongue and hold out a Pepsi can with black crud on it. They light a match.
Why are they trying to blow up her neighbor’s house tonight? The men aren’t telling as the match gets closer to the wick.

In Mysterious Neighbor Madeline and her boyfriend, Drew, are left to deal with matters as best they can, and even Drew can’t help much. He had just enlisted in the military. No adults seem willing to help except the old lady next door, the mysterious neighbor, who is being targeted by the thugs. She has all too much to tell Madeline. And the teenager can count the seconds ticking away on her life after she finds out the dangerous information the old lady has to impart to her.

This is no ordinary plot. It’s bigger than 9/11 and far more devastating. It has been two thousand years in the making.

Recently it has also promoted Julia: A Romance by Dora Benley, published last spring.

Picture of front cover of Julia: A Romance.

Julia has every reason to wish that she had not been born the daughter of a Roman senator during the Roman Civil Wars of Marius and Sulla. Her father, Rufus, is trying to escape the proscription lists and save his life by betrothing his only daughter in marriage to Marcus Sisenna.

Marcus Sisenna is the right hand man of Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix, one of the leading men of Rome of the day. Rufus needs his armies and the protection both Sulla and Sisenna can provide.

But Julia does not want to marry a man who has already had five wives and who is just marrying her for her father’s money and estates. She does not want to be added to his collection of trophies. Julia wants personal happiness despite the time period into which she has been born.

Her father thinks only of keeping his wealth and estates together. Her divorced mother is interested only in her own lovers. To whom shall Julia turn for assistance? The answer may surprise you. For it is obviously just the opposite of what the desperate Julia might expect.

On March 15 Cheops Books LLC will publish Caesar’s Lost Legions.

Caesar Augustus has sent Caelius Antonius to the Roman province of Germania in 9 AD to draw a map of wonders that will lead the legions to a promised land as far East as the River Elbe. There are reports of a a sea port that would serve as a highway to lands as yet unnamed.

Augustus’s ward, Arminius, a model German turned Roman, has volunteered to lead the legions of Varus there. Caelius awakens one night to find a symbol of Thor’s hammer engraved in the tree bark outside his tent. He senses a spy from some disaffected tribe watching him. He reports the spy to Varus who defers to Arminius. Arminius says that all the Germans are of course watching, delighted that the Romans have come to civilize their benighted country.

Evidence builds of a conspiracy. Caelius reports it to Augustus back in Rome personally. But Augustus refuses to listen. Arminius was his ward who had lived in his house in Rome, and Caesar had never had a son of his own. Arminius was his blind spot. As a warning to Caelius, Caelius’s wife is kidnapped. No matter what Caelius must defend his maps to the death. They hold the key to Rome’s future. He hopes that neither he nor his wife must die to realize it.

Join Edward’s long ago ancestor, Caelius, in his adventures on the far frontiers of the Roman Empire in Germany. They echo the adventures his latter day descendant, Edward Ware, will someday face in his own map plots against the latter-day Germans.

Recently Daniel Teran, the cover artist, drew a cover for the upcoming historical thriller Carthage Must Be Destroyed.

Picture of Carthage Must Be Destroyed
In Carthage Must Be Destroyed Gaius Antonius is inspired by the leading senator and statesman, Marcus Porcius Cato. He turns his talent for drawing into a map making expedition to Carthage where he manages to ferret out a naval vessel as evidence that the Carthaginians are starting to rebuild their fleet in the aftermath of the Second Punic War. They have finished with the reparations that Rome imposed on them, and now have money to spare.

He and his mentor Cato return to the Roman Senate to get them to declare war when the map disappears. Gaius must chase the Carthaginian Princess Tanit across the Mediterranean and meet all sorts of unexpected hardships.

Will he make it in time, or will Princess Tanit and her relatives gain the upper hand against them? Find out in Carthage Must Be Destroyed by Dora Benley.

In Carthage Must Be Destroyed Gaius Antonius is inspired by the leading senator and statesman, Marcus Porcius Cato. He turns his talent for drawing into a map making expedition to Carthage where he manages to ferret out a naval vessel as evidence that the Carthaginians are starting to rebuild their fleet in the aftermath of the Second Punic War. They have finished with the reparations that Rome imposed on them, and now have money to spare.

He and his mentor Cato return to the Roman Senate to get them to declare war when the map disappears. Gaius must chase the Carthaginian Princess Tanit across the Mediterranean and meet all sorts of unexpected hardships.

Will he make it in time, or will Princess Tanit and her relatives gain the upper hand against them? Find out in Carthage Must Be Destroyed by Dora Benley.

Another one of Dora Benley’s Roman novels, Caesar’s Lost Legions, will be published next year in 2019 on the Ides of March, March 15. It is the successor of Julia: A Romance. It will be published in a hardcover,paperback, and ebook edition. But the hardback and paperback will be available only on the website: http://www.edwardwarethrillers.org.

Augustus has sent Caelius Antonius to the Roman province of Germania in 9 AD to draw a map to lead the legions as far East as the River Elbe. Caelius awakens to find Thor’s hammer engraved in the tree bark outside his tent. Is that a warning?

Caesar Augustus has sent Caelius Antonius to the Roman province of Germania in 9 AD to draw a map of wonders that will lead the legions to a promised land as far East as the River Elbe. There are reports of a sea port that would serve as a highway to lands as yet unnamed.

Augustus’s ward, Arminius, a model German turned Roman, has volunteered to lead the legions of Varus there. Caelius awakens one night to find a symbol of Thor’s hammer engraved in the tree bark outside his tent. He senses a spy from some disaffected tribe watching him. He reports the spy to Varus who defers to Arminius. Arminius says that all the Germans are of course watching, delighted that the Romans have come to civilize their benighted country.

Evidence builds of a conspiracy. Caelius reports it to Augustus back in Rome personally. But Augustus refuses to listen. Arminius was his ward who had lived in his house in Rome, and Caesar had never had a son of his own. Arminius was his blind spot. As a warning to Caelius, Caelius’s wife is kidnapped. No matter what, Caelius must defend his maps to the death. They hold the key to Rome’s future. He hopes that neither he nor his wife must die to realize it.

Join Edward’s long ago ancestor, Caelius, in his adventures on the far frontiers ofthe Roman Empire in Germany. They echo the adventures his latter day descendant, Edward Ware, will someday face in his own map plots against the latter-day Germans.

Murder on Spirit Islandby Dora Benley, a young adult thriller, will be free on Amazon Kindle starting Tuesday. It is on a five day promotion. But hurry! An offer this good won’t be repeated this year.

Edith can’t go to school without finding Stripes. She and her lab,Tricks, search through the backyard with no luck. She sees a van parked in front of her driveway. They dog dashes aboard. She follows.The door slams behind them. They are headed up the road and out of town past her grocery store and even her high school where she was supposed to take a math exam today. She screams and yells but the driver won’t stop.

As the van drives farther and farther north, only gradually does it dawn on Edith that she’s been kidnapped. It doesn’t make any sense toher that the girl in the cab is Eliza Fitzhugh, her next door neighbor from up the street. It makes even less sense that the driver looks just like some guy that she saw long ago last summer in a movie of her parents’ wedding from twenty-five years before.

She finds herself transported all the way to a place she has never heard about before called Spirit Island. What do people there want with her? Edith had better figure it all out soon, or she might end up dead.

If you liked Murder on Spirit Island, you will also enjoy other young adult thrillers, supernatural horror tales, time travel novels,and romantic historic thrillers by Dora Benley including Back to Venice, Book of the Dead, Doom of Egypt, Rose Red, and Julia: A Romance.

Murder on Spirit Island by Dora Benley, a young adult thriller, will be free on Amazon Kindle starting Monday.

Edith can’t go to school without finding Stripes. She and her lab, Tricks, search through the backyard with no luck. She sees a van parked in front of her driveway. They dog dashes aboard. She follows. The door slams behind them. They are headed up the road and out of town past her grocery store and even her high school where she was supposed to take a math exam today. She screams and yells but the driver won’t stop.

As the van drives farther and farther north, only gradually does it dawn on Edith that she’s been kidnapped. It doesn’t make any sense to her that the girl in the cab is Eliza Fitzhugh, her next door neighbor from up the street. It makes even less sense that the driver looks just like some guy that she saw long ago last summer in a movie of her parents’ wedding from twenty-five years before.

She finds herself transported all the way to a place she has never heard about before called Spirit Island. What do people there want with her? Edith had better figure it all out soon, or she might end up dead.

If you liked Murder on Spirit Island, you will also enjoy other young adult thrillers, supernatural horror tales, time travel novels, and romantic historic thrillers by Dora Benley including Back to Venice, Book of the Dead, Doom of Egypt, Rose Red, and Julia: A Romance.

Julia: A Romance was entered in the RITA Contest for best short historical romance. It has entered part 2 of that contest.

Julia has every reason to wish that she had not been born the daughter of a Roman senator during the Roman Civil Wars of Marius and Sulla. Her father, Rufus, is trying to escape the proscription lists and save his life by betrothing his only daughter in marriage to Marcus Sisenna.

Marcus Sisenna is the right hand man of Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix, one of the leading men of Rome of the day. Rufus needs his armies and the protection both Sulla and Sisenna can provide.

But Julia does not want to marry a man who has already had five wives and who is just marrying her for her father’s money and estates. She does not want to be added to his collection of trophies. Julia wants personal happiness despite the time period into which she has been born.

Her father thinks only of keeping his wealth and estates together. Her divorced mother is interested only in her own lovers. To whom shall Julia turn for assistance? The answer may surprise you. For it is obviously just the opposite of what the desperate Julia might expect.

We should send notices about the following books to Italian magazines about Italian culture such as Italia Magazine or Italian American.

In Caesar’s Lost Legions Augustus has sent Caelius Antonius to the Roman province of Germania in 9 AD to draw a map to lead the legions as far East as the River Elbe. Caelius awakens to find Thor’s hammer engraved in the tree bark outside his tent. Is that a warning?

In Pliny: A Thriller Pliny the Elder, or Gaius Plinius Secundus, was an ancient Roman scientist, essayist, and thinker, probably the greatest mind of the first century AD. He had an office right next door to what later became the Porta Nigra in Trier.

What was he doing there, hundreds of miles away from his home in Rome? Trier was the oldest Roman city in Germany. He had been appointed Governor of the Province of Germany probably by the Emperor Vespasian and his son, the Emperor Titus. No doubt he studied the birds there as well as the flora and fauna since he was the first to write an encyclopedia called the Natural History, which was influential for centuries.

He was carrying on business as usual here early in the summer of 79AD before packing his bags and returning home for a summer at the seaside south of Rome at one of his villas near the Vesuvius Volcano which unknown to any mortal that summer was about to erupt.

According to legend that is how Pliny died. He was leading an expedition to save those too near the volcano when the volcano sent a rain of ash down upon him. Italian archaeologist now think they may have discovered his remains in a ship in the Bay of Naples near the volcano. See article on the website.

But the novel offers a different explanation for his mysterious disappearance. He was being pursued by German warriors for writing a derisive work about their peoples and culture called the Germania.

But did he escape or not? Pliny: A Thriller may present surprising answers. It is the latest book in the Edward Ware Thrillers at War Series.

In Julia: A Romance Julia has every reason to wish that she had not been born the daughter of a Roman senator during the Roman Civil Wars of Marius and Sulla. Her father, Rufus, is trying to escape the proscription lists and save his life by betrothing his only daughter in marriage to Marcus Sisenna.

Marcus Sisenna is the right hand man of Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix, one of the leading men of Rome of the day. Rufus needs his armies and the protection both Sulla and Sisenna can provide.

But Julia does not want to marry a man who has already had five wives and who is just marrying her for her father’s money and estates. She does not want to be added to his collection of trophies. Julia wants personal happiness despite the time period into which she has been born. Her father thinks only of keeping his wealth and estates together. Her divorced mother is interested only in her own lovers. To whom shall Julia turn for assistance? The answer may surprise you. For it is obviously just the opposite of what the desperate Julia might expect.

In Carthage Must Be Destroyed Gaius Antonius is inspired by the leading senator and statesman, Marcus Porcius Cato. He turns his talent for drawing into a map making expedition to Carthage where he manages to ferret out a naval vessel as evidence that the Carthaginians are starting to rebuild their fleet in the aftermath of the Second Punic War. They have finished with the reparations that Rome imposed on them, and now have money to spare.

He and his mentor Cato return to the Roman Senate to get them to declare war when the map disappears. Gaius must chase the Carthaginian Princess Tanit across the Mediterranean and meet all sorts of unexpected hardships.

Will he make it in time, or will Princess Tanit and her relatives gain the upper hand against them? Find out in Carthage Must Be Destroyed by Dora Benley.

Livia: A Novel may soon have a second edition. Watch this blog post and the website for announcements.

Livia has just returned from her search to find her fiance, Octavius, heir of Julius Casesar, in the wake of Caesar’s assassination. Octavius has fled Rome, and she was trying to save his life. She gets captured by pirates for all her trouble. When she finally catches up with her fiance she can no longer marry him. She learns that her own family, the Claudians, were behind Julius Caesar’s assassination. She can be Octavius’s mistress and nothing more. A proud girl, she spurns the thought and figures she must give him up for good.

Livia describes herself in her diary at this sad impasse:

“I can just imagine what I looked like: long coils of black hair curled in ringlets plas­tered all over my face, my neck, my bosom, and my shoulders — pasted on by dried salt and brine. A red silk dress clinging to my figure and slipping down over one shoulder a bit too far. Here and there still a jeweled earring or ankle bracelet poking through as a sad legacy from my other life. Looking all together like a prow ornament that had been fished up from the depths after some long ago shipwreck.”

At this low point of her life Livia would be surprised to learn that she will somebody marry the man she loves and stay married to him for 52 years. It will become one of the most legendary matches in Roman history and one of the most historically important, too. Just how this comes about is the story of this piece of fiction: Livia: A Novel by Dora Benley, another one of this author’s ancient Greek and Roman novels. If you liked this story about ancient Rome for young adults, this novel about Livia and Augustus, you will also like Book of the Dead, Helen of Troy, Cleopatra’s Stone, Caesar and Cleopatra: A Novel, Julia: A Romance, Julius Caesar: A Novel, Medea the Witch, and Jason and Medea: A Novel.

Jason and Medea is #4 in Ancient Civilizations Fiction on Amazon Kindle. Today ends its free promotion. Get it while you can.

Princess Medea lives in the dream-like Kingdom of Colchis along the Black Sea. It is the richest land in the world presided over by a gift from the gods, the Golden Fleece. Gold is as plentiful in this land as the sands on the beach. She and her sister go to do the palace laundry one day and discover a strange ship from a foreign land coming ashore on the Phasis River. Her father holds a banquet and Medea meets a golden-haired prince from far away who claims he has come here to win the Golden Fleece to take home to Greece with him. He is willing to fight for the Colchians or to buy the Fleece outright.

Medea’s father, King Aeetes, at once summons his guards and warriors and throws the foreigner and his sailors in jail. Medea knows she must save this foreign prince or no one else will. But in order to save him she must betray her father and her people. It is a hard choice for one so young to make. But for Medea there is no turning back.

Jason and Medea: A Novel is Dora’s Benley’s latest Greek and Roman novel about the ancient world for young adults. If you enjoyed this romantic suspense novel, you will also enjoy her other works such as Julius Caesar: A Novel, Caesar and Cleopatra: A Novel, Medea the Witch, Helen of Troy, Minotaur, Cleopatra’s Stone, Book of the Dead, and Julia: A Romance.

King Richard I: A Novel by Dora Benley ranks #2 in European Historical Fiction on Amazon Kindle. Get it while it’s hot.

Elizabeth is a lady in waiting to Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine during the time of her confinement at Salisbury Castle. Queen Eleanor is a woman of remarkable powers, some say dark powers. Elizabeth learns to be a witch from her and takes up the lore of gathering herbs in the woods. The Queen then directs her to accompany her newly crowned son, King Richard I, to the Holy Land on the Third Crusade. She is to protect him against all evil, especially the scheming of Prince John, the new king’s brother, who wants to crown himself in his stead.

Elizabeth sails to the Holy Land to take up battle with the infidel. But she finds herself in an unexpected quandary. Instead of King John the enemy kidnaps her and threatens to put her into a Middle Eastern harem. They threaten to take her away from the man, King Richard I, whom she is sworn to protect and defend. But in the oddest fashion of all, she finds herself falling in love with her captor, a Saracen. What is Elizabeth to do? She cannot forget her oath to the Queen. But she also cannot betray her own heart.

Page Turner Excellent book by Renee Marie:

Excellent book Very entertaining. The characters are well developed. You come to care for the characters and root for them. The way this book was written was enjoyable. The reader was left guessing trying to figure out who the bad guys were, once you thought you knew who was bad the author threw in a plot twist and everything you thought you knew was wrong. King Richard I, Queen Eleanor, the Witch of the White Rose, King Philip of France, Richards brother the future King John. Wonderful fictional book. Highly recommended! I will definitely look for other books written by this author! Absolutely a pleasure to read!

If you enjoyed Richard I: A Novel you will like other young adult novels by Dora Benley including Livia: A Novel, Julia: A Romance, Julius Caesar : A Novel, Book of the Dead, Minotaur, and Helen of Troy.

Today King Richard I starts its five-day promotion on Amazon Kindle. Get it while its still free. But hurry! An offer this good won’t be repeated this year. It is a 9/11 inspired novel. It is appropriate that the promotion begins on the 17th anniversary of 9/11.

Elizabeth is a lady in waiting to Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine during the time of her confinement at Salisbury Castle. Queen Eleanor is a woman of remarkable powers, some say dark powers. Elizabeth learns to be a witch from her and takes up the lore of gathering herbs in the woods. The Queen then directs her to accompany her newly crowned son, King Richard I, to the Holy Land on the Third Crusade. She is to protect him against all evil, especially the scheming of Prince John, the new king’s brother, who wants to crown himself in his stead.

Elizabeth sails to the Holy Land to take up battle with the infidel. But she finds herself in an unexpected quandary. Instead of King John the enemy kidnaps her and threatens to put her into a Middle Eastern harem. They threaten to take her away from the man, King Richard I, whom she is sworn to protect and defend. But in the oddest fashion of all, she finds herself falling in love with her captor, a Saracen. What is Elizabeth to do? She cannot forget her oath to the Queen. But she also cannot betray her own heart.Page Turner Excellent book by Renee Marie:

Excellent book Very entertaining. The characters are well developed. You come to care for the characters and root for them. The way this book was written was enjoyable. The reader was left guessing trying to figure out who the bad guys were, once you thought you knew who was bad the author threw in a plot twist and everything you thought you knew was wrong. King Richard I, Queen Eleanor, the Witch of the White Rose, King Philip of France, Richard’s brother the future King John. Wonderful fictional book. Highly recommended! I will definitely look for other books written by this author! Absolutely a pleasure to read!

If you enjoyed Richard I: A Novel you will like other young adult novels by Dora Benley including Livia: A Novel, Julia: A Romance, Julius Caesar: A Novel, Book of the Dead, Minotaur, and Helen of Troy.